Oct. 1964–Sept. 1965, vol. 65
A Seminarian Looks at the Council
By Kenneth R. Maly
POPE JOHN XXIII said: “A new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendor.” Pope Paul VI said: “The Council is to be a new spring, a reawakening of the mighty spiritual and moral energies which at present lie dormant.”
Two years ago a seminarian studying anywhere in America could have considered parts of the Mass in English only as the vaguest dream. When America printed an article about the vernacular in the spring of 1962, several well-known priests hinted that the appearance of an article on such a topic in such a prominent magazine seemed unusual when compared with the way a similar topic was accustomed to be treated. The vernacular even as a possibility was yet remote. But today it is a reality.
The biblical movement, theological developments, and ecumenism have taken these same quick strides toward freedom and progress. How can a young, inexperienced student for the priesthood explain these phenomena so unlike the methods and movements of the Church that he studies about in his textbooks?
The seminarian knows that this progress and change will affect his life as a priest — especially in ten or thirty years when he becomes a pastor.
And he wants deeply to understand this “new day,” this “reawakening of the mighty spiritual and moral energies.” He sees his entire future in the Church based upon the answer to this problem — an answer he is certain he must find! Thus he looks behind the signs of the times, the changes, and tries to discern their causes.
As an American, the seminarian might posit his own country’s democratic, free spirit of initiative as the driving force behind the revolutions. He thinks, perhaps, that the free spirit he knows in his own society has been adopted by the Church. Future priests might be tempted to apply to the whole world what they have seen exemplified in their own country — the vigor and vitality of young leadership like that of our late President, John F. Kennedy.
The American Spirit?
President Kennedy once said: “The American builds best when called upon to build greatly. Arouse his will to believe in himself, give him a great goal to believe in, and he will create the means to reach it.” Is it the American “will to build greatly” that has pervaded the Church to bring on renewal? The seminarian asks himself this question and the answer comes back to mystify him. He sees the American drive is not the source of the new atmosphere in the Church, but he cannot fail to see the American spirit come through.
On January 25, 1959, Pope John XXIII first announced the Second Vatican Council. From the beginning some of his closest associates said it was impossible. With despair they foresaw the effects of trying to hold a Council “for Christian renewal.” When his first announcement went almost unnoticed, Pope John repeated it more emphatically. When some of the hierarchy told the Holy Father that they couldn’t possibly get things ready for a Council in 1968, Pope John said, “All right, we’ll have it in 1962.”
The cause of so great a change so quickly must lie in the use by Pope John of new machinery and new procedures of administration to bypass the more traditional ones. But this alone cannot explain the fact that only forty-four out of twenty-five hundred bishops voted against the Constitution on the Liturgy just a few vears later. It must be true that for years (and in some places for decades) the Catholic Church — bishops, priests, religious, and laymen — have seen the need for a new approach to modern society.
As a matter of fact any movement prominent today because of the Council — the biblical, liturgical, ecumenical movements — can be traced back to a beginning twenty-five and fifty years ago (and some to a beginning four hundred years ago).
Today the Church sees its role in a new light. It sees the modern man engrossed in the modern world and know he must be saved. In a sense all the elements of change and reform, along with the technological and scientific advances, converge in this point of history as favorable to the Church’s work. Could it be said that Providence and the Holy Spirit has chosen, and even prepared, today’s atmosphere for the upheaval and spiritual regeneration at which Vatican II aims?
With these considerations in mind, I believe it can be said that this Council has been called under very healthy circumstances; called for positive rather than negative purposes; called from a position of strength rather than of weakness; called to effect positive ends rather than to correct abuses or put enemies to rout.
A German bishop said in the fall of 1962: “The bishops of the world are facing with determination the task of proclaiming the Gospel of Christ in such a manner that modern man will find it creditable and attractive.” Can it be that this proclaiming of the Gospel can be accomplished only through and after a Council? Hardly. The Council, one must say, has by its very existence and by its workings brought on renewal in a manner possible in no other way. One could even say (almost) that the Council is indispensable. But to understand it, one must understand some of the big movements that have gone before and led up to the “new Pentecost,” the new day that is dawning on the Church.
Criticism in the Church
In recent months the number of critical articles has multiplied. It seems only with the Council and its deliberation on religious freedom that criticism of almost every facet of Catholic life could be printed without censure and read without cries of “Silence!”
In 1945 a German named Joseph Goerres wrote a Letter to the Church. In it the Church was criticized for many of its actions that seemed so out-of-tune with modern technology and sociological knowledge. This letter was allowed to circulate, and a new age began for the Church, in which open criticism of ecclesiastical actions was allowed to live and spread.
This opened a new approach for ecclesiastical affairs. Thus did criticism increase to a point where in 1963 Father Hans Küng could write on “The churchmen unsatisfied with the state of Church and Freedom” in Commonweal and condemn the actions of certain officials in the Church who had stifled freedom in the Church by their decisions.
Within twenty years the Catholic Church has reached a point where its many aspects are constantly “Under fire”: nuns, seminaries, seminary training, parochial schools, mixed marriages, and territorial parishes. Many names — lay and clerical — are becoming prominent as basic issues such as these continue to be debated. The priest of tomorrow will do well to remember that he will be working in a society that lives in this new atmosphere that seems at times terrifying, at times so wonderful.
A second big area which has influenced many deliberations in the Council itself and will influence many pastoral decisions in 1980 and 1985 is the new, emerging concept of “the Church.” What is the Church? Can any attempt at definition really show its character and nature?
The Church — What Is It?
The late Father Gustave Weigel, S.J., once wrote: “The main drive in our ecclesiologists is their search for the living Church. They do not like logically constructed abstractions that neglect the churning, effervescent existence of the Church.” Few seminary textbooks use language such as this, yet future priests must have some way to realize the need for more than superficiality in defining the organism that is the Church.
Theologians describe the Church as “Strength in Weakness,” God’s strong hand existing in human weakness. They speak of the Church as an “Encounter with God,” a deeply personal experience that man has with his Creator. They use the term “Mystical Body,” saying that just as the branches are part of the vine (just as they are such, not in some analogous fashion), so are the members of the Church joined to Christ.
And here the experts in the Church urge the return of theology to that found in the early Church the positive approach that singles out Christ’s triumph in Resurrection and man’s union with Him in the Mystical Body — a doctrine that was explained and lived by St. Paul.
Father Weigel, in an article that appeared in The True Voice, the diocesan paper of Omaha, Nebraska, wrote last fall that under the stimulating image of the Mystical Body of Christ important things are being said about the Church for the needs of man today. He develops his point at length:
No one in the Church is passive. In the living body no cell except a dead one is exempt from the job of working for the whole.
Administration lays down guidelines but the work is done by all. Hence in the life and activity of the Church, the laity — whose work is not immediately administrative — had to be considered most of all since they make up most of the Church membership.
The Council taught a clear doctrine on this point. In Peter’s epistles the body of believers is described as a royal priesthood. In pursuance of this thought the Council reminds the faithful that they are sharers in the Body of Christ Himself. He is our sole High Priest and Intermediator. The royal priesthood forms the universal priesthood of all of those who are one in Him. It is not the sacramental priesthood which stamps its own distinctive, functional character, but that sacramental priesthood itself supposes the universal priesthood in order to make the latter real and tangible to us.
Father Weigel then wrote that the Council did not answer all questions, but that it did “solve problems for men of our day, living in a world which challenges Christian endeavor.”
Most important of all are words spoken by Pope Paul VI in his opening address to the Council Fathers at the second session of Vatican II:
“The Church is a mystery; she is a reality imbued with the divine presence and, for that reason, she is ever susceptible of new and deeper investigation . . . The time has now come, we believe, when the truths regarding the Church of Christ should be examined coordinated, and expressed. . . .”
These “truths” will certainly form the foundation and motivation for the seminarian’s apostolate in coming years as he meets the generations of the “worshiping people of God.”
Existentialism
A trend in Christian thought, though “alive” for some time, is just beginning to have an influence on the workings of the Catholic Church. At times throughout the past century, existentialism has taken an extreme form that was truly incompatible with the dogmatic position of the Church. But this philosophical attitude had a future; and today it is found in a form that will aid the priest’s work with men.
Existentialism has been defined as “the belief that the truth most worth having is not grasped by objective knowledge or carefully defined ideas but by a man’s own passionately involved existence.” Perhaps a better way to view it is to say, with Will Herberg, that the “human situation is the starting point.” He says that an existential theologian theologizes “in the midst of life, and with relevance to all the issues of life.”
The individual man receives an importance formerly unknown. Thus priests are taught to deal with each of the persons in their parishes as men whose lives are individually unique and whose problems have no existing counterpart. This fact was definitely and repeatedly brought out by Pope Pius XII in his statements on psychology and psychiatry. More recently Pope John in Pacem in Terris appealed to respect for the individual.
One bishop said that the Council consolidates “a new understanding of the existential dimensions of Christian life.” A seminarian must live that statement!
Incarnational Theology
Not least in the developments that are seen in today’s Church is the new approach to the world and salvation through it. Donald Thorman in The Emerging Layman described one priest who for nineteen years had never thought of the world other than as an instrument. For him the things of this world were only to be tolerated — as if in an ideal situation the world would not exist, as if God’s original plan did not include the world. This priest did not realize that the world is not evil.
But what is incarnational theology? Its approach is opposite to that of eschatological theology. In it the conflict between the temporal and the spiritual is delved into, and theologians scek for answers to the conflict. Father Peter Riga in Catholic Thought in Crisis gives a well-developed treatise on the subject. He says that, on the one hand, the eschatological approach “emphasize[s] the triviality of earthly concerns in comparison to heavenly things.” The incarnational interpretation, on the other hand. “emphasizes the fact that God became man, and that somehow all matter has become sanctified by that fact.” The Incarnation takes on a new meaning.
Somehow one can say, then, that the world is good in itself and that the man who strives solely to better the world is doing a positive good. Cardinal Suhard in Priests among Men said that work. social aid, better society are good humanistic values, even when considered without any idea of conversion.
Father Alfred Delp wrote while in prison that the world needs “truly religious men ready to cooperate in all efforts for the betterment of mankind and human order.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, trying to reconcile the fact that so many men have no choice but to work on worldly projects and to spend their lives engaged in pursuits less spiritual, gave matter that same importance. Father Robert Roth, S.J., assessed Père Teilhard in “The Importance of Matter,” an article that appeared in America (December 21, 1963). He wrote that Père Teilhard’s message
. . . has given hope and encouragement to all who had begun to feel overwhelmed by the imperious demands that worldly concerns make upon their time and energies. Men have suddenly become aware that interest in this world can have meaning for their enrichment as humans. Matter, then becomes important — one might even say, sacred. “By virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.”
In summary I would like to quote a more recent book by Father Riga, Peace on Earth. In it he speaks of Pope John’s attitude:
The Pope . . . urged Catholics to become the evangelical yeast in the modern world. The Pope had no fear of the modern world or its achievements, he harbored no nostalgia for a defunct ecclesiastical medievalism. On the contrary, he expressed the grandeur of modern man and pointed out how he can grow even greater and more firm. His words are an encouragement to further the ideals of modern man, and these words lean on the common dignity of man.
Thus, as a priest one day, the seminarian will meet people and see in their work the “grandeur of modern man.” He will see that the human body and love are something good, that a stable economy resulting from a tax cut is good, that President Johnson’s war on poverty, President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Bill — considered solely as humane acts are something tremendously good. The seminarian will see Sputnik, Telstar, Gemini, the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps all as marvelous instruments for good. And he will see the pursuit of the intellectual, though delving almost wholly into theoretical questions with no immediate value for society, as a task advancing knowledge and improving the world.
Ecumenism
Relatively new in America, the ecumenical movement has received a big boost from Vatican II. Yet as recently as two years ago many Catholics were sure that their main job was defending their Faith. This is their job, but today they know that understanding and respect, one religion for another, has been almost universally accepted.
When Father Weigel died several months ago, one of America’s strongest beacons for ecumenism died with him. But its ecumenical spirit will not die. In increasing numbers are Catholics appearing with men of other denominations on TV, in the press, before adult audiences, and on college campuses.
The Church’s emphasis has shifted, mainly because of Pope John’s own attitude and example, from one of mild hostility or rigid defense to one of love, respect, and understanding. Religions are now psychologically prepared, not to be bitter, not to be dominating. But to be open-minded and big-hearted — to be Christian.
A Seminarian Contemplates the Future
With that as a background, what can today’s seminarian expect of his parish of tomorrow? Can he hope for more than “cerebral faith” in his own people Can he expect his own parish to enter into the world — to discontinue holding the world at arm’s length?
Can he expect the abyss between the people and the priest to be bridged — the advantage of both parties? Can he hope for the revitalization of the Church in the individual, microcosmic parish of his future? Can he hope of the vanishing of the Catholic ghetto?
Can he know that his own laymen will get a “chance?” Can he even hope for an adequate lay spirituality for his people?
My answer to all of these question is “Yes.” I think that by closing the gulf between the parish of today and the Christian communities of the first centuries, the Church can regain some of the enthusiasm it knew in those days. I think the seminarian looking forward to his own priesthood can hope for a better integrated Catholic laity, for meaningful participation of the people in the liturgy — and a subsequent spirituality fitting for the people and stemming from the liturgy. I think a seminarian can hope that there will better understanding with separated brothers in his parish. And I think he can hope that after the Council and after the rethinking of the theology of the world the value of seculer pursuits will be raised in his parish.
All of this can be hoped for, perhaps fifteen. twenty. or thirty years from now — and will then be traced to some degree to the work done at Vatican Council II.
Of only two things can the seminarian, going to classes this week and next week, be sure. First, he knows for certain that the liturgy will have more meaning for his parish — and that the spirit of Christian living will grow from it. Secondly, he knows he can be optimistic; for he realizes that the ultimate factor in bringing about the renewal is not this or that “camp” of bishops, not this or that Catholic writer or theologian, not this or that method of education, but the Spirit of God!
With this positive attitude and optimistic viewpoint, tomorrow’s priest knows he has a duty. He knows he must understand the Church in ferment and the world in turmoil — and bring them both to Christ.
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